We're thrilled to let you know that our final session of the CultureShift Community of Practice will feature Veronica Gorrie, the award-winning Gunai/Kurnai author of Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience.

With such a small group, this is an unparallelled opportunity to listen to and speak with Ronnie about her experiences as an Gunai/Kurnai woman working in the Victorian and Queensland police forces and what accountability and repair could look like.

About Veronica Gorrie:

Veronica Gorrie (Ronnie) is a proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, a writer and the author of Black and Blue, published by Scribe Publications. Black and Blue won the Indigenous Writing Award in the 2022 Victorian Premiers Literary Awards as well as the 2022 Victorian Prize for Literature. She is the first Indigenous author to win this major award. She is passionate and skilled in non-fiction memoir and is working to extend her writing to film and theatre.

Ronnie received Creative Victoria’s First Peoples funding program to write Nullung and The Wheeler Centre Hot desk Fellowship in 2020. Nullung was read at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2021, as part of the Emerging Writer’s Festival First Stage program. Ronnie is also the recipient of the Inaugural First Nation Writer’s Residency from the Australian Council for the Arts 2021 and the First Nation Writer’s Fellowship for Varuna, the National Writers House. Ronnie’s writing appears regularly in The Guardian and she has also written for The Age.

About the CultureShift Community of Practice

Designed for Intersectionality Advisers and Diversity and Inclusion Officers, the CultureShift Community of Practice is a unique opportunity for practitioners, campaigners and policy advisers to connect, collaborate and galvanise their practice and expertise. Participants will be drawn from a variety of sectors, including primary prevention, health organisations, local government and other not-for-profits working at the intersections of social justice.

The Community of Practice will be co-facilitated by grassroots changemaker Jill Faulkner and longtime intersectional activist Rosanne Bersten. They will draw on the expertise and experience of participants in a peer-led approach to share practice and policy challenges and unpack opportunities for collaboration.